The present invention relates to a stripping apparatus for stripping a coated electric wire having a core electric wire coated with an insulating coating made of a soft synthetic resin or a similar material. More particularly, the invention is concerned with a stripping apparatus for removing the insulating coating at the terminal end or an intermediate portion of the coated electric wire. Still more particularly, the invention is concerned with a stripping apparatus having a large adaptability to coated electric wires of various diameters.
Generally, a conventional stripping apparatus for stripping a coated electric wire has a pair of clamping plates having cutting edges which oppose each other leaving a predetermined gap therebetween when these clamping plates are held in contact with each other. The clamping plates are carried by a pair of arms movable so as to bring the clamping plates into and out of contact with each other. In operation, the coated electric wire to be stripped is clamped by the plates and received in the gap formed between the cutting edges of the plates so that the coating is cut by the cutting edges and removed from the core electric wire as a result of a relative movement between the core electric wire and the insulating coating. Since the size of the gap formed between the cutting edges of the clamping plates is fixed, it is necessary to prepare a plurality of pairs of clamping plates having different gap sizes and to selectively use one of these pairs of plates in order to meet the requirements for stripping coated electric wires of a large variety of diameters. In general, it takes an impractically long time for the clamping plates to be mounted on and demounted from the arms of the stripping apparatus. This conventional stripping apparatus, therefore, cannot be used suitably due to an extremely low working efficiency, particularly in the electric wire stripping in large-lot and small-quantity fashion.